Good to see that some of the left are actually being honest, unlike all the traitors to labourism like Miliband, who just gush about her despite the fact that Thatcherism is opposed to anything the labour movement stood for.

ironically, you are the one who has had a kneejerk response where they think they are on the side of public opinion, and you are the one who is going to look very silly when we look back on this.
criticizing a public figure for supporting dictatorships and apartheid in between ruining many people in Britain’s lives is quite reasonable actually

I think I’d better be added to this list. Not because of any ‘dead old lady bashing’, I’m not into that, but because I abhor the implied threats to freedom of speech that Hynd, who is making a list (and presumably checking it twice), represents with this article. We laud M. Thatcher for her defence of freedom, would she have approved of Hynd trying to stifle it? As another great Briton once said (admittedly this is paraphrased), I respect your freedom to speak even as I hate you for what you say. Add me to your list, or get rid of it. It’s not a sensible or a wise thing to do in a mature democracy. It’s arguably a threat that would only deter infants or other immature persons.

Read it before I came here and was glad to see that you’d made reference to freedom of speech. Thanks. Genuinely appreciated.
I agree with you – it’s too early – in my own opinion – to start the reverse handbagging – but some people have been waiting and living for this moment – they’re entitled to say what they like. Their choice to make fools of themselves. As you say: exploding vitriol, whatever you thought of her and her legacy, isn’t going to roll the clock back, nor solve any hurts she caused. Just going to make those spreading vitriol look a little bit foolish. I’m not looking forward to next Weds – when they give her a ceremonial burial along the lines of Diana and HM Queen Elizabeth: the Queen Mother – it won’t be flowers thrown at her car, it’ll be something else entirely (wouldn’t be surprised if it’s coal), but whatever is thrown it’ll be a sad, sad day for those venting impotent, pent up rage and anger – and for the country. The world will be watching, and all the good 2012 did us as a nation on the world’s stage will evaporate in mere moments. Good God it’ll be a bad, bad day next Weds.

An interesting debate. Steve I think that there are differences between some of these tweets. Some are plain nasty ( #Thatcher I am also glad the woman suffered terribly in her final years. Alzheimers and finally a stroke claimed her #evil arse.), while others try to critique Thatcherism (Say what you like about Margaret Thatcher. … her government supported Pinochet, Saddam, Suharto and the House of Saud).

Of course all of this is free speech. it is allowed and it should be. It seems pretty hypocritical however, to deplore the lack of humanity in Thatcher’s policies and then tweet ‘ding dong the witch is dead’ about an old lady who has just died. It should be allowed of course, but I don’t like it and am free to say so.

Nonetheless I do think there is a place for reflecting on many of Thatcher’s terrible policies – and I think it is possible to do this in a respectful manner, without resorting to the sort of nastyness we’ve seen. Just because someone has died does not mean we cannot critique their life, but anyone who has a modicum of decency should do so bearing in mind that Thatcher was a human being not a devil. She had friends and family and in recent years was a frail old lady.

There is a debate to be had about Thatcherism and the affect it had and still has on Britain, but let’s not cheapen this debate by nasty jibes. Every politician is a human being. Of course people have the right to celebrate if someone they hated dies. But that doesn’t automatically make it a humane or useful thing to do.

Never mind the politics as the economic argument of the neo cons has been shown to be a failure. Neoliberalism in the form of almost no controls on banks and the financial markets had to be saved by Keynesian economic interventions. Regan and Thatcher were wrong.

I love this list. I’ve managed to retweet most of them to my twitter feed. So thanks for the clear concise list of Thatcher hating for me to spread! HAHA! THAT HORRIBLE BITCH IS DEAD!!! WAA-HA-HA-HOO-HOO!!!!

I haven’t ‘celebrated’ her death, but I’ve certainly not maintained any respectful silence. She is responsible for a lot of damaged lives. She inspired disdain – she knew this and repeated showed that she did not care if others did not like her. And her son was a criminal – which is always relevant.

I can understand people hating her, she pissed off a lot of people but she also dug the country out of a financial hole and it was her government that lead to the prosperity that Britain enjoyed throughout the 90s while Blair, who i’m sure is not viewed half as villainous, proceeded to destroy the financial security she’d built. Yes, she made life hard, even unbearable, for a lot of people but when we’ve dug ourselves into a hole that deep someone has to be the villain to get us back out. Cameron is undergoing the same situation, though Thatcher actually succeeded in eliminating the deficit.

It’s entirely cold to celebrate a human’s death unless it symbolises something for you. Gadafi’s death symbolised freedom from oppression for thousands so they may celebrate it but Thatcher’s death changes nothing so why celebrate it?

I’m too young to have lived under her actual office but I did enjoy the benefits that the country enjoyed because of it afterwards.

The woman was a determined and decisive leader who took control and opened herself up to be portrayed as the villain to make the country better for the future. I’m not a conservative and I never will be, I have no love for her or her policies but I can respect the ends, if not the means. If Cameron were more like Thatcher maybe Britain would be further out of the hole its in.

The idea that she “dug the country out of a financial hole and it was her government that lead to the prosperity that Britain enjoyed throughout the 90s ” is fatuous. She crippled working class forces, threw millions out of work – no prosperity for them – and championed selfish greedy acquisitive values at the expense of the collective and social. I’m sick of reading misrepresentations of history like this. “I’m too young to have lived under her actual office” says it all.

Mad Maggie changed the world so much for the better that her own party ushered her out of Downing Street in a coup with the economy in ruins. They denied the electorate the chance to kick her out properly. A glossy biopic doesn’t change the facts – she stole from the poor to benefit the rich, supported dictators, attacked the trade union rights of the working classes and labelled the poor, disabled and unemployed as scroungers. Ask Nelson Mandela what he thinks of her credentials to “represent sane citizens of the free world”!

Mad Maggie changed the world so much for the better that her own party ushered her out of Downing Street in a coup with the economy in ruins. They denied the electorate the chance to kick her out properly. A glossy biopic doesn’t change the facts – she stole from the poor to benefit the rich, supported dictators, attacked the trade union rights of the working classes, obliterated mining communities and labelled the poor, disabled and unemployed as scroungers. Ask Nelson Mandela what he thinks of her credentials to “represent sane citizens of the free world”!

Sticking a label on something (“The Left”) is akin to school playground name calling and does not make a position critical this divisive individual invalid.

I don’t know old you lad, I’m old enough to heve been working around places like Brampton Brierlow, Manvers Main, Wombwell, Goldthorpe, Wath-on-Dearne and all the other places in the Dearne Valley when it was overun by the Met in 1984 paid for out of my taxes.

True leaders, worthy of the name, do not make devisive war on the weak and the vulnerable. The legacy of what this tool of a politician stood for has brought us to ruin. The greedy, grasping, short term, philistine, faith based voodooism unleashed by this individual and the sycophantic acolytes who follow this nonsense should be incinerated alongside her.

My Mrs contacted me at work today an insisted I buy the most expensive bottle of champagne I could find. There will certainly be celebrations in our South Yorkshire house tonight.

Add me to the list and forward it to MI5’s list of so called subversives under Groucho Marxism.

Add your namesake to the list of those rejoicing at the passing of one of the truly evil figures in British history. You may wish to gloss it, Steve, but I for one will not forget Belgrano, the Cabbage Patch, the Poll Tax, or Polmaise.

Please add me to your list of pride! Only the most disgusting sycophants would use the long awaited demise of this champion of dictators, deregulation and corruption to pour out their fake ‘humanity’. Let’s finish what we started with the Poll-Tax riot…

Well the loony pathetic loser left does what it always did best – whinge & moan in their ineptitude while true inspired leaders like Maggie change the world for the better. So let these sad little people be vicious and rude, the huge majority of the sane citizens of the free world will always hold her close to their hearts.

Lol not even the majority of people in the UK hold her close to her heart….
Personally I’m disgusted at the gushing sycophantic shite that is pouring out about her…she was an evil evil person and I would suggest those who do t feel glad that someone responsible for so much suffering is dead have a problem..

This is without doubt the most bizarre, and utterly pointless article I have ever read. I know that Tories are not the greatest fans of free speech, or of democracy generally, but just because an ex-prime minister, herself responsible for desecrating entire communities, has passed away, it does not mean that freedom of speech is suspended.

Yes, some people should know better, but you get tasteless comments on deaths, regardless of political leanings – to try and attribute that to a specific “group” is incredibly misleading and misguided.

I presume you read the Mail’s ‘Vile Product of Welfare UK’ with great glee and much vigorous head-nodding approval, and that you used said article’s brand of opportunistic, cynical journalism as the basis for this piece?

It is usually thought decent to honor the passing of any notable leader left or right – only the “two legs better” bunch lurking in a particularly obscure, left facing corridor of politics can be this nasty.

It is *not* usually thought decent to honour the passing of any notable leader left or right – not by anyone with any sense or sincerity in their beliefs. Politics is not a game – not really, however some involved in it treat it, and certainly not to those on the receiving end – and it makes no sense to be ‘sportsmanlike’ about opponents who have, in your view, done appalling damage to people. Should people have ‘honoured’ Hitler, Stalin, Mao?